Chinese Brush Painting Four Seasons: Paint Flowers, Birds, Fruits & More with 24 Step-by-Step Projects

By Fei Le Niao

In traditional Chinese painting, a dipped brush is used to apply water, ink, and color to silk or paper. The form has a long history and is still widely enjoyed by painting enthusiasts. Chinese painting is not limited to precise similarity in the appearance of objects, but rather emphasizes expressing the author's subjective taste. This allows even total beginners to quickly get started in the art through self-study.This book combines Chinese painting techniques with twenty-four solar terms of traditional Chinese culture. According to the sequence of the four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—natural scenes are refined into a series of charming ink paintings. Following the tutorials in this book, you can complete beautiful ink and wash paintings in just a few strokes. You will also learn about the culture surrounding solar terms that has been passed down for thousands of years and taste the beauty of the changing seasons. In this book:•Starting with the most basic knowledge, you will gain an understanding of the classification and characteristics of the brush, ink, paper, inkstone, and pigment, laying a solid foundation for painting.•You can gradually move from superficial to deeper techniques as they are integrated into the tutorials, including a total of more than 30 painting techniques that can be easily learned through practice.•Follow meticulous graphic steps and intimate key tips to complete 24 fine ink paintings with rich themes centered around flowers, birds, vegetables and fruits, fish and insects, and landscapes.•Gain insight into China's twenty-four solar terms culture and the wisdom of life it contains, broaden your creative vision, and expand the horizons of your aesthetic taste.•Gain inspiration to integrate these paintings into life and turn them into practical items which can be used to decorate your home or as gifts to relatives and friends.•The easily copied images, along with the spine binding design, make it easy to spread the book evenly as you practice the techniques in it.Follow this book to experience the beauty of freehand brushwork in traditional Chinese painting!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shanghai Press
• Release date: Apr 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781938368998

Book preview

Fig. 8 Postcard

The lily in the painting symbolizes good wishes. Painted on a postcard, it is a special gift to be given to friends.

Preface

For thousands of years, the Chinese have divided a year into 24 solar terms, with six solar terms for each season. Mirroring the changes in climate and phenology, solar terms play a key role in daily life. For example, they guide farming activities and impact people’s diet, clothing, housing, and transportation. Many customs and habits related to solar terms have been preserved to this day, and a large number of literary and artistic works with solar terms as the theme have been generated, constituting an essential part of traditional Chinese culture. The 24 solar terms constitute a knowledge system of laws summarized by the ancients in their age-old contacts with nature, which perfectly integrates astronomy, farming, phenology, folk customs, and philosophical ideas, suggesting good wishes and wisdom for people to live in harmony with nature. In 2016, the solar terms were placed on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list.

In the form of traditional Chinese painting, this book presents the various climatic characteristics of the 24 solar terms and their representative flowers, birds, fish, insects, fruits, vegetables, figures, and landscapes in separate and individual terms, along with an introduction to the solar terms.

The book presents the paintings associated with the 24 solar terms in the order of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. With each painting there is an introduction to a new painting technique. Plenty of blank space is left to encourage readers who love Chinese painting but dare not try it to create poetic pictures.

As well as painting on traditional paper, you can paint directly onto bookmarks, postcards, envelopes, or paper bags to give them to your friends as gifts. You can also put your artistic creations on everything from cups and penholders to notebooks, enhancing ordinary stationery.

Now, let’s start our journey through the traditional beauty of the 24 solar terms.

Fig. 9 Chinese Trumpet Flower

The Chinese trumpet flower is bright in color and rich in fragrance. Its tenacious vitality has caused it to be associated with lofty aspirations. In the painting, a young flower protrudes from the wall, drawing two bees to come and observe.

CHAPTER ONE

Tools and Materials

The tools of traditional Chinese painting are collectively referred to as the four treasures—brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. The paintbrush is a traditional writing and painting tool originating in China, and is made of animal hair or bird feathers. Although ink has a single color, it is indispensable in traditional writing and painting. With this ingenious material, the exquisite artistic conception of Chinese calligraphy and painting can be fulfilled. Paper is one of the four great inventions of ancient China, and the types of Chinese painting paper are quite specific. The inkstone—one of the four treasures of the study—has been gradually replaced by ink and ink plates as a result of social progress, and is now more for collectors. Besides, painting cannot be done without pigments. In The Record of the Classification of Old Painters , a work of Chinese painting theory from the Southern dynasties (420–589), the method of coloring according to categories was proposed, whereby the objects in the painting were divided into categories, with one color applied to each. This chapter briefly explains the basics of the four treasures and the fundamental blending of pigments.

1. Brush

There are a variety of ink brushes, including weasel-hair, goat-hair, and mixed-hair. Weasel-hair brushes are elastic, and are generally used to outline tree branches or trunks. Goat-hair brushes are highly absorbent, and are used for coloring and broad strokes. Mixed-hair brushes are moderately elastic and absorbent, and are good for outlining and coloring.

Weasel-hair brush.

Goat-hair brush.

Mixed-hair brush.

Sharp.

Round.

Strong.

Neat.

The basic standards for a good ink brush are that it should be sharp, round, strong, and neat. Sharp means that the tip of the brush must be pointed; round means that the belly of the brush becomes round and full when absorbing water; strong means that the brush must have some elasticity; and neat means that the hair of the brush is of the same length when splayed.

Mixed-hair brush for painting.

Weasel-hair brush for outlining.

Goat-hair brush for painting.

Detail painting brush for outlining.

In this book, a mixed-hair brush is used for coloring a small area, a weasel-hair brush for outlining branches and stems, and a goat-hair brush for rendering pictures and coloring a large area. The fine strokes mentioned, such as for leaf veins and stamens, are achieved with a detail painting brush of any model. In painting, the direction of the brush generally changes according to the shape of the object.

2. Ink

In addition to ink and ink sticks that are classified based on form, pine-soot ink and oil-soot ink are categorized according to material. Pine-soot ink is made from pine ash, the color of which is relatively solid and ideal for xieyi (freehand brushwork) in painting. Oil-soot ink is made from the burning of a specific vegetable oil or animal oil. It is brilliantly dark, and adds a layer of gloss to gongbi (fine brushwork).

In addition to the choice of ink, the grasp of the layers of ink color is a fundamental skill. Ink color is divided into five layers:

Coke ink: ink poured directly from the bottle.

Dark ink: coke ink plus 10% clear water, at a ratio of 1:9 clear water to coke ink.

Heavy ink: coke ink plus 20% clear water, with a color